My Shelf-ish Week #60

What I've Been Writing: 

I think (hope) I'm over the pity party I was throwing myself last week. I had a couple of dozen more sales on Day Robber after it released. But I'm not yet having much luck getting back into writing again. My muse is on vacation, I believe. Every time I opened Night Giver, determined to dig in and just write something, even if it was all crap that would later be scrapped, I'd get interrupted. And when I finally had time to get back in again, the procrastination had set in once more. And it'd take a while of mindless doom scrolling on my phone before I returned to the "okay, let's do this" frame of mind, only to get interrupted when I actually tried to do it, repeating the pattern in a wheel-spinning loop. So I've only gotten a few thousand words written in the last few weeks. But I guess that's better than nothing. The word count is at 114,000 right now.

What I've Been Reading: 

I started a story that I couldn't, for the life of me, get into. So I set that aside when North Country arrived on Tuesday. I'll finish that before the end of the day, so I'm calling it read this week. 

What I've Been Stacking on my Shelves:

North Country is also on this week's Stacking my Shelves list. I had it pre-ordered to arrive from the Zon last week. But they were running way behind, so when I received a newsletter email from the author on Saturday, saying there were still signed copies available at a list of certain stores, I canceled my Amazon order and got the signed copy instead. It arrived on Tuesday, and I started it immediately.  Then I got a different edition of Stormside that was for sale on TikTok because I liked its look better than the Target edition I had. My special edition of The Inadequate Heir arrived this week. Signed!  This is probably my favorite book by Danielle Jensen (yes, all because of Keris), and she's, like, my favorite author at the moment, so I'm happy to have that copy. And then I got the new edition of Torn, and ooh! I forgot to mention last week that I received Slaying the Shadow Prince, so I'll give it a little shout-out this week. Welcome to my collection, Shadow Prince. I ordered it back in September of 2025 from Aurora Crate. It was a happy surprise to finally see it hit my shelves.

And that was the ups and downs of my shelf-ish week. Hugs. Hope you have a great National Chocolate Pudding Day. 

My Shelf-ish Week #59

 What I've Been Publishing: 

Day Robber releases today! It's available on my website (LindaKage.com), plus places like Amazon, Apple, BN, Kobo, and Google. After putting a year of work into this one and being super excited to share it, I had a record low of seven pre-orders (well, there were eight, but someone returned theirs before release day). So now, I'm just kind of hanging on and trying not to spiral into a bad place.  I really hope those seven people like it, though. (Thank you, seven people! I love you.)

What I've Been Reading: 

Had lots better luck with books I've been reading than books I've been writing, at least. That's something. I finished Mistakes Were Made and The Wind Weaver.  I really enjoyed them both. Need the next book from both authors asap. 

What I've Been Stacking on my Shelves:

Got two new books for my shelves this week. There's the third book in the Oak & Holly cycle: Raven at the Ash Door.  And the last book I needed to finish my Danielle L. Jensen collection: Tarnished Empire. Hoping to get started on reading both of these in the next month or so.

My Shelfish Week #58

 What I've Been Writing:

Hey, I actually did a bit of writing on Night Giver (which used to be called Defectors and Queens) this week. I mean, not much, but I'm slowly getting back into the groove of working on a story again. Maybe there will be more words next week. The manuscript is at 112,000 now. 

What I've Been Reading:

I was a reading fool this week.  I finished Shadow Reaper and ended up really enjoying it.  But then I started The Wolf King and just flew through those pages. Wow. But good golly, Miss Molly. I loved The Night Prince even more. And double wow. I'm a total Blake girl. Not even gonna apologize about it, even though Callum is fine too. Blake is just...asdfjkl...you know. I knew there were two love interest options and it was about shapeshifting wolves, so I was a little worried that my own Day Robber book would have some similarities. And yeah, it does. I totally follow a formula, I guess. But there are way more differences.  And after that, I needed some contemporary romance in my life, so I read the rom-com Story of My Life, and guys... This one was amazing too. I've been overloaded with really great books lately. You could call me book blessed, I guess. Hopefully, my good book reading streak continues.

 

What I've Been Stacking on my Shelves:

So I got sucked into the Maxton Hall series on Amazon Prime and finally bought that book trilogy. Hopefully, I'll actually read them someday.  Then, I got the deluxe edition of Skyshade.  This series always has really cool artwork in the pages. And Dhampira was my Allurial Book Box of the month choice. I think it's a why-choose romantasy.  Kind of looking forward to reading that one!